


breathe deep and dive

by laurachase



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurachase/pseuds/laurachase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the <a href="http://tsn-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/12119.html?thread=21880919#t21880919">kinkmeme prompt</a>: Chris has done a good job of hiding how bad Mark's depression has been, he can blame the dark sunken eyes and sullen behaviour on lack of sleep from coding and the times that Mark doesn't attend the office as Mark reinforcing his "I'm CEO, bitch" mentality. The only other people that know about Mark's feelings are family and Dustin - but then when Wardo visits from half a world away it's not so easy to hide Mark's illness from someone that once knew they all so well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breathe deep and dive

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this thing two years ago and figured i might as well post it here so...

It was as if Mark had spent three years clinging to the hope that Eduardo would forgive him and they’d go back to being best friends, until a few months after the settlement, faced with Eduardo’s continued absence in his life, he was forced to accept the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. Their friendship – and whatever chance at more than that they might have had – was over, and it was all his fault.

Hope had been the only thing sustaining him, and now that it was gone, he was empty. Despair rushed in to the fill vacuum.

He proceeded to lock himself in his bedroom for two days, emerging at long last, eyes red and hair matted with sleep and grease, to tell Chris and Dustin to fuck off, he was perfectly fine, okay, even as he retrieved an entire case of beer from the refrigerator.

A week went by before they broke down and decided to call Mark’s mother. Mark talked to his mom on the phone upstairs, while they sat in silence in the living room, trying to pretend their friend wasn’t falling apart and they weren’t at a complete loss as to what to do about it.

Thankfully, Mark showed up at work the next day. He was late, and he hadn’t showered, but it counted.

The relief was short lived when he up and walked out of a talk without a word.

It turned into a pattern. Mark skipped work on a regular basis. He didn’t eat. He alternated between not sleeping at all and sleeping way too much, and he was perpetually moody and irritable; his long suffering assistant quit after he yelled at her for no reason, and she had to be bribed with a generous pay raise to return.

Months passed. Facebook’s annual shareholders’ meeting was coming up, and Eduardo was going to be there. It would be the first time since the depositions that Mark had seen him. Understandably, Chris and Dustin were more than a little bit apprehensive.

The day of the event arrived. They made sure Mark was presentable, or at least as presentable as it was possible for him to be. He’d lost a lot of weight, and he hadn’t had much weight to lose to begin with. His face was pallid and drawn. There were dark circles under his eyes. Basically, he looked like shit.

Eduardo was as suave as ever, his suit elegant and expensive and his hair slicked back. He wore a polite smile as he shook hands with the others over sandwiches and flutes of champagne.

As soon as they entered the conference room, Mark’s gaze latched onto Eduardo and didn’t let go.

“Eduardo, my man!” called Dustin.

“Hey, Eduardo,” said Chris.

“Hey, guys, it’s good to see you,” said Eduardo, bringing each of them in for a hug. He nodded perfunctorily at Mark, and then did a double take. Mark may have been able to trick everyone else into believing he was all right, but there was no way he could fool Eduardo, who used to know him better than he knew himself.

Sure enough, Eduardo pulled Chris aside afterward.

“What the fuck’s wrong with Mark?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” Chris hedged.

“That’s bullshit.” Eduardo gave him the look he gave Mark back in college when Mark was lying about having eaten more than tuna for dinner and they both knew it, the one that proceeded him being force fed fruits and vegetables. “C’mon, it’s me, I’m not just some investor. Tell me.”

Chris sighed, resigned. “He’s depressed. He’s depressed, and he misses you.”

Eduardo’s eyes widened with surprise and a little bit of doubt. “He - he misses me?”

“Oh my god, you two are so stupid. _Of course_ he misses you. You were best friends and now you’re not and he has no idea how to deal with that.”

It seemed as if something inside Eduardo collapsed. He was no longer calm and cool, the consummate businessman. “Are … are you serious? Don’t fuck with me, Chris.”

“Just … talk to him, okay?”

Eduardo took a deep breath, before making his way toward Mark.

Dustin came up behind Chris, and they watched as Mark and Eduardo smiled hesitantly at each other.

-

It wasn’t easy.

Mark didn’t make a miraculous recovery. He was as broken as ever, but Eduardo was there to pick up the pieces, and, slowly but surely, he got better.


End file.
